Struggles of the Basket Life

Struggles of the Basket Life: Always the Last to Know

One of the tough things about living overseas is that even in the days of fast technology, we are often the last to know things that happen at home with friends and loved ones. And as I found out today, even if the thing directly involves you, you might be last to know.

I got an e-mail from my friend Allison when I woke up this morning. In it she mentioned she was sorry to hear about our house. She then went on to mention another house that had been broken into recently. So putting two and two together, I figured our home in New Jersey had been broken into. So I e-mailed Joe (who is away on a trip) to see if he had heard anything. He as well had not been notified of anything. So we spent the first half of the day wondering what exactly had been done to our house. My best friend, who lives next door, got an e-mail from Joe this morning nd then called and gave me the details about 20 minutes ago. She had not contacted me because Joe’s mom had been over there talking to the police and wrapping things up and said she would be calling us. Unfortunately, that hadn’t happened.

I was really not too worried about it and had forgotten about it as I went through my day. There is nothing of extreme value to us in there, and from what even may be valuable it doesn’t look like anything was taken. The only concern is some of our papers in our filing cabinet were gone through, so identity theft is an issue.

The tough part is being in the dark about these sort of things. This has happened multiple times to me in being away. You are pretty much guaranteed to be the last to know about things and need to learn to deal with surprises!

Benefit and Struggle of the Basket Life: Friends

One of the benefits of this life is that I get to meet a lot of great people. Some are girlfriends and wives who are in the basketball world. Others are natives of the country we are living in. While others may be ex-pats who are living in the country we are in for other reasons. Whatever it may be, if you are a basket wife, you often identify the country you lived in by the people you met there. It is a really cool opportunity and gives you such a wide variety of friends.

The struggle of this life can be keeping up with friends though. As a basket wife, I am not an easy person to be friends with. And I usually tell people this up front. If it is going to be a problem that I will miss 90% of the big occasions in your life, I am probably not the friend for you. If you are not good on e-mail or Skype, I am probably not the friend for you. If you have to hang out with a person a lot to be close, I am probably not the friend for you.

I have learned over the years not to get too upset when I lose touch with a person. It is not that I don’t try to keep relationships up, but often life circumstances do not allow for me to be close with certain people anymore. I am really thankful for those who put forth the effort though. There are people who are often amazed at how close I can be with friends back home. But I know that with prayer, effort and love, relationships can survive almost anything.